List environment is an alternative construct designed for easier command chaining. List() function wraps a list within an environment where almost all functions in this package are defined but result in the next List environment for further operations.
Suppose we work with the following list.
library(rlist)
library(pipeR)
people <- list.load("https://renkun-ken.github.io/rlist-tutorial/data/sample.json")
To create a List environment, run
m <- List(people)
then we can operate the environment-based object m with map(), filter() and other functions, or extract the inner data with m$data. All inner functions return List environment, which facilities command chaining.
For example, map each member to their name.
m$map(Name)
# $data : list
# ------
# [[1]]
# [1] "Ken"
#
# [[2]]
# [1] "James"
#
# [[3]]
# [1] "Penny"
Note that the resulted object is also a List environment although its printed results include the inner data. To use the result with external functions, we need to extract the inner data by calling m$data.
Get all the possible cases of interests for those whose R experience is longer than 1 year.
m$filter(Expertise$R > 1)$
cases(Interests)$
data
# [1] "movies" "music" "reading" "sports"
Calculate an integer vector of the average number of years using R for each interest class.
m$class(Interests)$
map(case ~ length(case))$
call(unlist)$
data
# movies music reading sports
# 2 2 2 1
A more handy way to extract data from the List environment is to use [].
m$class(Interests)$
map(case ~ length(case))$
call(unlist) []
# movies music reading sports
# 2 2 2 1